


Fork in the Road

by doxies



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Changeover AU, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Thriller, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-01-20 06:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12426699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doxies/pseuds/doxies
Summary: Changeover!AUWhen Daniel's younger brother Daehwi is bewitched, there is only one person he can think to turn to: former schoolmate and local witch, Ong Seongwoo.





	1. Chapter 1

_ “Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. _

_ 'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat. _

_ 'I don't know,' Alice answered. _

_ 'Then,' said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter.”  _

 

***   
  
It was morning. The air was crisp and clear, the wind nipping at his nose to blow a few stray feathers of hair across his brow. A large sun hat sat flattened across the crown of his head, partially obscuring bleary eyes from the sun. A single strong breeze, and the hat tilted and slipping to the ground as he turned to let in a bright flare of light onto a lightly freckled face. A straw mat was squashed beneath him, folded like an accordion in some places and tattooing creases onto his flesh. On his lap: a forgotten book and an empty can of black soda, a crumbled tart on a plastic plate, a opened bag of soggy chips.

 

Midsummer meant lazy days, twiddling thumbs and whistling in the wind; The idleness of the everyday was a welcome reprieve from the hubbub of running for class, whiling away time in the library pored over reference texts too many to count. It’d been awhile since he returned home  for the holidays, and being away had only taught Daniel to miss the familiarity of San Franciscan air, the faint scent of warm rice and the sea.

 

Daniel could recall a time in the recent past, once, when he’d been so determined to craft a life of independence away from home. His high school years were peppered with a wistfulness for change, and college had seemed like a special time, the storied place where one discovered themselves and metamorphosed into the figurative butterfly they were supposed to be. But two years at college had not changed him; Daniel was still just as lost as ever, a little bit of flotsam in an of ocean of sweat and tears.

 

He hadn’t known his own homesickness until he was home, plane touching down on the runway strip, packing his large frame into his mother’s cramped, tiny car and speeding down too familiar highways on the way home. And now that he was home, he felt little inclination to ever leave again.

  
"Euigeon-ah!" his mother called from inside the house; Daniel startled from his musings, toppling the contents of his lap onto the ground as he shot up into air like a jack-in-a-box. 

 

"WHAT?" Hastily dusting crumbs off his shorts, he made a beeline for the door, "Did someone die?"

 

And Daniel remembered the wisp of a dream he'd had, shadowy figures trawling beneath his eyelids, ominous and lurking, all broken bones and smiling teeth like sharp knives chewing at skin. His head spun with possibilities, and he clamped down the urge to panic, thinking of what could have gone wrong – Had his mother fallen off the stairway? Had she tripped and knocked her head? Perhaps a call from his school telling his mother that he'd failed everything and had been expelled? 

 

All these scenarios ran in his head like a movie reel (his mother called it  _ being dramatic _ ) and he mentally checked the first two potential disasters as  _ plausible _ and the last under  _ very likely _ .

 

By the time he stomped into his mother's room with elephant feet, he'd come up with a dozen more twisted ideas as to what could have gone wrong. But then he spotted his mother, poor poor Kate, swimming in a sea of clothes, and he groaned.

 

She leaned back into the closet, and gestured vaguely at the heap surrounding her.

 

"Daniel, have you seen my other shoe?" 

 

Ah. So  _ this  _ was the emergency.

 

There were some things he supposed he would never miss, the first being Kate's ever present absent mindedness, and the second, Chinese takeout Thursdays. Today, it was both.    
  
"Can't you wear something else?" Daniel frowned, nose scrunching as he fished around in the heap for the lost heel. 

 

“Well, it’s a perfectly good shoe, I don’t know how a perfectly good shoe can just...walk away,” Kate complains. 

 

“Shoes don’t walk away,” He sighed, exasperated, holding up a deep maroon pump at Kate only for her to shake her head,  _ wrong shoe _ , “it’s just the fact that you don’t organise your closet.

 

His mother only laughed, sheepish, as Daniel scoured in deep crevices until Daehwi bounded in through the door with great aplomb, missing shoe in hand like a trophy.

 

"Found it!" And Daehwi made it a point to stick out his tongue at Daniel as he preened from Kate’s light praises.  _ Kid _ . (Daehwi had always been good at finding things, and Daniel had about as much organisational skills as Kate did; he figured he could let him have his moment of glory.)

 

The moment is broken when Kate put on her shoes. Purple shoe, yellow dress. She looked into the mirror again, smoothing out the creases in the fabric, and frowned.   
  
"Daehwi-ah can you help me find my other pair? The one with the straps?"   
  
Daehwi tossed up his hands in despair, and Daniel snorted, laughing as he bodily carted him out the door and out of their mother's grasp. Laughter echoed through the house as Kate yelled for assistance repeatedly to no avail. 

 

It's easy, their lives falling into place like he hadn't missed Daehwi growing two feet into the sky, or missed Kate's job switch, or the new vase by the counter because Daehwi had smashed their previous one playing ball with the new kid two blocks down the road. The months away hadn't changed them, and the constancy is a faint lull of comfort amidst the kaleidoscope of change that seems to engulf Daniel and sweep him away beneath its currents; Daniel took heart in the fact that there would always be Kate, Daniel and ickle baby Daehwi (who really wasn't so tiny any more).

 

They used to be Dad and Daniel and Mom, and then little David. He had a big sister once, a tiny baby girl who'd never survived the congenital heart defect she'd been born with. Daniel was born a year later, on the same day baby Anne was placed beneath golden leaves and damp earth watered by tears and rain. And they had seemed happy for a good many years after that; Daniel was content in the quiet lunches and sunny days, the kind of everlasting devotion only a parent could have for their child. He was 10 when his parents had had Daehwi, who had his father's deep brown eyes and fair skin. He'd been named after their father, David – a name his mother had stopped using the day his father walked out the door to begin a new life with his mistress.

 

And they’d been Kate and Daniel and Daehwi ever since. 

 

They’ve had to adapt, they’ve had evolve and change. They’d shifted from their picket-fenced home in the city back to the suburbs. Money was tighter, and home a little more cramped, the wallpapers faded and worn with age. But it was warm still, and Daniel was always happy to return.

 

College had changed him little. Two years had passed in a flash, peppered by phone calls from home by the payphone, paid for in coins borrowed from his roommate until it was late. Plane flights were expensive, and Daniel had packed three years of content into two, working till late at night, a pencil in hand, scribbling wildly at a foolscap pad until Jaehwan tossed a book at his head and told him to go to bed. It was easy to forget himself in the business of his routine, and in a sense, while time ran forwards relentlessly, Daniel had found himself stationary, and waiting.

 

Shedding his clothes, he glanced into the foggy mirror as he pulled the bathroom door behind him. Same plain face, same stringy, straight hair, brown eyes lifeless and dull, shoulders a little too broad, limbs long and awkward. His face was not wholly unattractive, merely bland with the potential for some queer form of beauty he had yet for discover. Perhaps he needed a perm, or a new color, maybe something that would bring out the non-existent honey tones in his dark eyes. He tried pulling his fringe into a bang – and shook his head. 

 

The only changes college had wrought in him were newly acquired deep bags beneath his eyes that were etched like bruises in his skin. The newfound thinness from too-late weeknights and instant food probably didn’t help him look any less haggard, neither did the yellow, sallow skin from too many coffee-induced all-nighters. He looked like the walking undead, it was probably hardly a wonder why he hadn’t gotten a single date out of his years in college. Daniel figured he probably  _ was _ going to end up dying alone in some small ditch as a sexually repressed monk.

 

He sighed.

 

He turned on the faucet and let the water run cold rivulets onto his skin, as if the water would wash away the ugly insecurities and wicked thoughts. 

 

On his lips, he hummed an old ditty he’d picked up on the radio yesterday. His hands worked into a rhythm, kneading soap into aching muscles, down his arms and knees, a shiver as he’d washed himself between his legs, and then weaving shampoo through the strands of his hair until he was all clean and rinsed. 

 

He reached for the towel, stepping out the shower doors. And then he jolted, pausing. 

 

He watched his reflection catching in the mirror, a stranger in the looking glass, wearing his hair and face, but all wonky and queer, dangerous, like an odd facsimile of Daniel himself. The edges in the mirror were sharp and frightening, the planes of his face graceful, eyes sensual and inviting, flickering gold. This was a strangely erotic creature, red mouth and flushed skin, fevered and alive in away his own clumsy figure has never been. 

 

He widened his eyes, watching as the odd version of himself does too, and Daniel fleetingly wondered if he’d dreamed himself up a new person in his own shower musings. But then when he blinked, the image flickered and changed. Brown eyes stared back at him, ordinary as ever, and a feeling rose like pinpricks on his skin, ebbing and flowing.

 

It was an omen, he knew, a warning. 

  
_ It's going to happen _ , said the voice.   
  
"What's going to happen?" He asked aloud. But the voice was from inside him, ricocheting through his mind like the vibrations of a plucked string.   
  
It did not answer, but he knew what it was anyway, blinking red: Danger Danger Danger. It raised goosebumps on his skin, briefly suffocating like hands on his neck till he could not breathe. It was the odd unease settling in his bones like a vicious plague, cold and icy in his gut.    
  
It was a warning.    
  
The first time he’d had a warning, he was seven and staring back at the image of his father, watching him twisting his tie into place. The voice had told him to be prepared, whispered at him from the depths of his bones even as his father had kissed his mother's pregnant belly, eyes twinkling as always.    
  
(That was the night his father had begun his affair with his pretty new secretary.)   
  
The voice hadn't told him anything more then he'd known then, even years before words had broken down into flying pans and arguments like swords cutting into each other's chest, he'd known his father would never stay. It was always that feeling of premonition, and Daniel could see it like a mirror, but foggy. So he'd stood at the jaws of a lion waiting to bite until it all finally came crashing down.   
  
After that, little things: a broken foot on the way home, rental money misplaced and never found, the day he first time he met the strange boy from school, Ong Seongwoo.

  
Today felt different; there was something concrete in this warning, big and urgent and pressing.  _ Soon _ it whispered, and Daniel could feel it like a tidal wave, receding along the shore before it struck; something was going to happen, something big.

 

Daniel scrubbed at the foggy glass, willing it to go away.  _ Please _ , he thought,  _ please _ . He didn’t know what it would be, but he knew of its inevitability, and there was a sick, desperate feeling in his chest as he grabbed his towel and hurtled out the door –

 

Life had to go on in spite of the warning; Daniel could only pray that whatever would come might be quick and impermanent.  And so he hugged Daehwi goodbye, promising to pick him up later for ice cream and chips. There was a great reluctance in him to leave the house, and he watched as Daehwi squirmed beneath a mother’s kisses. 

 

Then he walked arm in arm with his mother down the road, the son two heads taller than the mother, two shadows etched into concrete in the slanting rays of the sun. They parted at the fork, Kate, to the right and Daniel, to the left. 

 

And Daniel turned into the mouth of day, right into its open jaws which he must enter despite all warnings. He felt the jaws snap down on his and knew at once he had been swallowed up. The day spread its strangeness before resigned eyes, its horror growing thin and wispy as it sank away. He could feel the flow, like a snapped string, coming back into the world once more, and the warning would soon become a memory, for it was useless to remember it now. It had come. He had ignored it. There was nothing more to be said. 

 

***

 

His temp job at the used bookstore did not pay that well, but summer jobs were rare in their part of town and Daniel needed some spare change to help tide with his living expenses. The AC was on full blast in the small store – a welcome reprieve from the muggy heat – and it was quiet, filled with inanimate books and paper that had no capacity to ask him funny things, to call him names or judge him. There weren’t usually many customers either – on Thursdays there would be Mrs. Kim from three blocks down in one of her argyle sweaters, with her hat and her cane, and on Fridays, the bunch of senior residents after their weekly game of Go-Stop. Most days, Daniel hid out between the racks, pretending to shelve things while his colleague, Sejeong, tended the shop front and talked to customers. Sejeong was rather self-contained, if effervescent, but she gave Daniel his space; the girl was unrelenting, obsessive about work, and seemed only too happy turning a blind eye to him skiving off most of the time unless the shop got busy (which rarely happened anyway); Daniel supposed that Manager Yoon could come in at some point to yell at him, but Daniel would take his chances.

 

On this particular day, it had taken Daniel two hours in the back devouring some new comic books for their first real customer to enter the store. 

 

The brown head was a familiar one. He thought he might have grown taller now than when he’d last seen him, though still as reedy thin as Daniel remembered. His face was sharper than the years before, more handsome than he’d been as a teenager. He had, on this day with him, a camera bag slung over his shoulder and a stack of books in one hand. He hadn't seen him in years, he thought, since he'd left for college some two or three summers ago.

 

He didn't seem to notice Daniel behind the row of books he'd been poring over, engrossed in his inspection of two book covers. They were books on romance; in his left a love story Daniel had recently begun to favor, and in his right, a copy of Austen. He leafed through the pages, fingers gentle yet tentative as he pored over the words. He looked quizzically at them, brows furrowing together as if there was something he could not quite understand. He put back one of the volumes, picking out another only to stare at it unblinking for a few moments. Whatever conundrum that had struck him did not seem to have left, and Daniel watched as he picked up the first two books, adding it to his growing stack of paperbacks. He walked forwards, out of the row of shelves, then stopped, pausing, a small grin creeping up the sides of his cheeks. 

 

“Kang Daniel.”

 

He spun around suddenly, and Daniel dropped his comic book, ashamed once at having been caught blatantly staring. 

 

“Ong Seongwoo,” he wheezed in acknowledgement, bending down to pick up the paperback. Only, the paperback wasn’t on the floor, it was in Seongwoo’s hands, and Daniel found himself staring at the swirling depths of his eyes, nose to nose, breathing heavily. He tried to back away, only to be entrapped by the adjacent shelf, hitting it with a thud. Seongwoo’s hands were on his shoulders, braced gently against the frame of his body, and Daniel could smell the sweet scent of his cologne, like sandalwood and musk, the warmth of every breath and exhale. He fought the urge to blush, or to tilt his head and...lean in – it  _ had _ been too many years, and Daniel had forgotten how he was like, and how it felt to be trapped underneath his watchful, impenetrable gaze. 

 

“How...how are you?" his voice was quiet, shy but mirthful, broken up by a stutter even as the smile never left his lips. 

 

“I’m good?” He didn’t know what to say, and the awkwardness stretched between them like an everlasting blanket of stars. They were galaxies apart, and Daniel had to remind himself that he’d only been acquainted with him very briefly many suns ago.

 

Seongwoo blinked at him, owlishly, as if pulling something from memory, "You’re at Berkeley? Econ major?"

 

Daniel nodded, humming in assent, and wondered, fleetingly, how he could have known, as he made to hand over the stack of rejected romance novels and proceeded towards the counter. But he didn't need to ask him  _ how _ ; he winked back at him conspiratorily, eyes twinkling in dangerous shades of gold and amber in an unspoken dare. Sejeong had rang up his purchase, and Daniel bagged them for him before seeing him out the door.

 

“Well,” he gestured vaguely, pushing at the door, “take care of yourself, Kang Daniel.” His eyes were light, but his voice was serious. It felt like a warning, and something in Daniel jolted, like a deeply forgotten memory – Was  _ he _ perhaps what he had been so warned of?

 

He shook his head, lips pressed in a grim line.

 

_ Ah _ . Of course, he thought, laughing shakily. Of course. 

  
***   
  


He ended his shift at half past noon, the strange encounter with the strange boy still swirling in his mind. He leaned against the back of the bench, eyes squinting, people-watching as Daehwi licked a stripe of ice cream off the back of his hand where he'd dropped it. 

 

It was dull today at the mall; there were plenty few passers-by milling around the storefronts, but none of them seemed to be looking to buy anything, never stopping for long, bustling about on their way to their next destination. The complex was a small establishment and offered very few options as it was; most of the younger crowd had shifted their purchases to the bigger and better places with the closure of the SR 480 the year prior that had made this place increasingly accessible. It didn’t help that the stores there had remained the same over the past twenty years, selling necessities and clothing three seasons behind the times. 

 

Something was different today though; a new store had been set up on the first-floor lot that hadn’t been there when Daniel dropped by the mall two days ago.    
  
_ 'Hwang’s Bric-à-brac' _ read the nameplate in fancy script, and Daniel spotted several trinkets (a little pink elephant, a ballerina in a tutu, an innocuous brown plush bear) through the display window. It was quaint, if rather odd. The walls were covered in jacquard woven tapestries from an era bygone, and elaborate, brocaded furniture too ornate for a small town like theirs. Whatever spare space that remained in the small shop was cramped full of old paintings and moth-eaten lace lamps in all sizes and shapes.  

 

Something about the small store had set Daniel decidedly off-kilter from the moment he’d set eyes on it. And yet, Daniel found his fingers and legs moving on their own accord towards the door, almost  _ compelled _ to enter. 

  
The feeling of deja vu prickled like pins and needles beneath his skin as he pushed through the golden, glistening handle. The stale air gushed out into the surroundings like it had been released from a vacuum, the permeating scent of talcum cloying in the room, sickening as it percolated through his lungs and seemed to seep through every pore; Daniel could feel a worrying ache in his teeth, jaw clenched too tight as nausea swelled in his throat. He should leave, he thought, but his feet were rooted to the ground as his hands reached for Daehwi in front of him, blindly, frantically –   
  
"Welcome," a smooth voice tinkled from behind the store counter. A young man stood inside, with light brown hair and rosy cheeks. He looked like something out of a fairytale, ethereal and unaging, the light of the room illuminating his hair like a halo. His lips were like a rose bud, pale pink and puckered. He must have been just out of school; he could not recall him from his own time in school, but surely, he must have been a few years ahead of him –   
  
"Can I help you?" He enquired, pleasant and rehearsed, fingers folding expectantly on the glass encasement.  His breath was warm on his face, smelling overwhelmingly of peppermint as he closed in on them, like a vulture closing in on its prey.

  
"We don’t have any money,"  his voice was curt, a polite smile plastered across his face as he edged towards the door in small steps.

  
But the young man was unrelenting. 

 

"The name is Hwang Minhyun," his voice was gentle, with a certain bell-like quality to it, "I sell trinkets from around the world. How about some finely-crafted woodwork, fit for a  _ lovely  _ young lad such as yourself?”

 

His smile was beguiling, bewitching almost, as he began to pull out drawers of curious baubles to settle in front of him. He paused, momentarily distracted by a pretty set of pearls and picking them up, he goggled at the exorbitant price tag before putting it back down. 

 

“I am sure there  _ must be _ something a beautiful young man like you would like among my knick knacks,” his lips stretched across his teeth, stained yellow from what he supposed must have been the peppermint tea which the store so strongly reeked of. And then he brought forth an exquisite matryoshka doll, opening up the largest doll and arranging the smaller ones in neat rows across the transparent showcase. 

 

Daniel didn’t think he could afford anything in this shop, but gently prodded at a delicate blonde-haired little girl-doll. Truly, these wares were exquisite, and the little bisque figures were remarkably lifelike with their plump, rosy cheeks and babyish smiles. 

 

“How old are you, young man?” Mr. Hwang jabbered on, making small talk with him, hands still flurriedly rearranging the trinkets on display. 

 

“Twenty,” he hummed absent-mindedly, fingertips still lingering on a particularly graceful ballerina doll.

 

“What about this  _ handsome _ little man here?”

 

“Daehwi is thirteen,” he found himself saying, a fleeting discombobulation in his mind that wondered why he was telling this strange man everything.

And the man pivoted away from him, turning to face Daehwi, "Kid, see anything you'd like?"    
  
Daehwi, peering curiously at the variety of knick-knacks with much enthusiasm, paused to point at a small nutcracker figurine before the man pushed it into Daehwi's waiting palms. The nutcracker’s jaw snapped shut with a click, and the sound of it ricocheted through Daniel’s head like a bell.  _ The warning _ . The smell of peppermint seemed to pervade his every pore, making it hard to think, and Daniel shook his head, trying to focus at once. 

 

“Daehwi?” He could feel the sensation of panic rising in his chest again, and he moved  swiftly, disentangling his brother’s fingers from the jaws of the little wooden man. “Well, we were just looking around, I’m afraid I  _ must _ be going –” He didn’t know why he was bothering with the pleasantries, and Daniel made to pull Daehwi towards the door, but the boy merely stood, entranced by the pretty man and his pretty trinkets. But Daehwi merely laughed, swatting him away as the man proffered a pretty stamp in exchange for the discarded wooden figure. 

 

“Daehwi,” He tried again, tugging at his sleeve, the voices in his head louder and louder like a cacophony.  _ Leave, _ they shouted,  _ you have to leave _ .

 

“Oh, but I  _ insist _ ,” the man laughed, voice raspy and cold at once; his eyes gleaming as Daehwi inspected the stamp’s embossment, “take it as a  _ souvenir _ , a little... _ gift _ .”

 

And the man, with fingers swift and nails like sharpened claws digging into skin, swooped in and planted the ugly face of the stamp onto Daehwi's pale flesh. 

 

Daehwi hissed, yelping; the skin on the back on his hand was at once red and raised, in the image of Hwang Minhyun himself, dark ink seeping beneath his skin like the roots of a plant into soil. Tears pooled in the wells of his eyes. 

 

“Most children  _ like _ a stamp,” said Mr. Hwang through a smile – and Daniel wanted to point out that Daehwi wasn’t a child, and hadn’t asked for his damned stamp. But as he looked, across Daehwi’s shaking shoulders and into his eyes – he felt something very old looking back at him, something triumphant, yet unappeasable. Those eyes, sleepy and bright at once, turned swiftly away from him. 

 

“Perhaps it would be best if we say goodbye for now, hmm?” he continued, suddenly hurrying them out door. Daniel saw the way the sunlight, slipping in slivers into the small premises, illuminated the waxing color of his flesh, translucent like the moulting flesh of a dead lizard. His smile, unassuming and almost shy, curling with a sliver of greed and desperation; in that instant Daniel knew this was not just a boy, not just a _man_. He was something _more_ than that, a befouled thing, a cursed creature for which he had no name.

 

He stood along the footpath, still grasping onto Daehwi with one hand, stupefied at his ineffectual self, mind glued up by the indissoluble scent of stale peppermint and the way his clothes seemed to reek of it. They had been lured in by pretty things, confounded, and then thrust out again, having served up some unguessable purpose.

  
And Daniel knew it was too late. The voice in his head was silent at last, waiting and anticipatory. In the end, the warning had been fulfilled and there was nothing Daniel could do to stop it.    
  


It was done.

 

They stood there for a long while after that, Daehwi sullen, the line of his spine taut and lips pulled unhappily across his face. Daniel let him prop his head up against his shoulders, watching his brother rub at the back of his hand, worrying at the raised, reddened skin. There, clearly outlined, even shaded in, was the face of Mr. Hwang himself, smiling back at him from the back of Daehwi’s hand. It seemed to lie  _ beneath _ his skin, not on top of it, its countenance smiling, smiling, knowing it could not be touched by the mere application of his handkerchief and human spit.

 

“I don’t like it,” Daehwi’s voice was small. A pause, and then, “It’s gonna wash off, right?”. Daniel’s heart stopped; the question was remarkably odd, and ricocheted in his skull like the memory of the morning. It was, after all, just a stamp. What harm could a stamp do?

 

“It needs soap, kiddo, soap and hot water,” he proclaimed, “it’ll wash off.” 

 

But the feeling lingered still, an uneasy knot in his stomach tightening up his neck like a noose; and somehow, Daniel didn’t think he quite knew who he was trying to convince. He didn’t quite know what to say or do, feeling like he’d failed terribly, even if he didn’t quite know  _ what _ . 

 

And then when the sun had finally set, they’d clambered onto the back of a bus, letting themselves be carried away by the engine, bumping and jerking like two unripe seeds in an empty can, with knobbly knees and apprehension in their arms and shoulders. 

 

***   
  


It took three whole days for the stamp to fade completely.

 

Soap and hot water could not remove it, nor could Kate’s many oils. For hours, mother and son worried at Daehwi’s hand, scrubbing and massaging, but nothing they did could coax the image of Mr. Hwang’s face from its spot, and it continued to sit with an almost serpentine gaze on Daehwi’s skin, indigo ink bright against his fair skin that refused to budge. Daehwi sobbed, clutching at his hand, scratching at it until it was red and bloody, and all they could do was to wait, quietly soothing the child with promises to try again tomorrow.

 

It puzzled Kate, and they would share worried looks as Daehwi shrank away, angry and tearful at once. Daniel did not dare to voice the words and fears that lingered beneath his tongue as if they were a curse, and when the night drew inwards, his dreams were tempered with nightmares of a too beautiful man, and the way he shrank, shrivelled in reverse. He dreamt of hands, of standing at a precipice, clutching onto Daehwi for dear life and waiting to fall.

 

Daniel had watched waiting, eager and trepid, worried and frightened all at once. The shadow of the man hovered over them until the face disappeared at last, and Daehwi began to laugh again, smiling, whining as the face had slithered away beneath his skin and vanished from sight. And he wondered, gratefully, if the voice had been wrong at last.

 

***

 

He walked past the store again the following Thursday. 

 

His shift had just ended; it had been a fruitless day at the store, with no real customers. Manager Yoon had decided to call it a day, and Sejeong had desperately fended off his attempts to help her close up. With nothing better to do, Daniel had been left to amble about until evening time,  waiting to pick up the some clothes from the drycleaners for his mother.

 

He’d somehow found himself drawn to the store involuntarily, and as he stood there staring blankly at the storefront, something niggled in the back of his mind – the letters of the nameplate gleamed bright and golden, seemingly invigorated by a good polish; from where he stood, he could see how the store was bustling, bursting at seams with customers. It was... _ alive _ . He watches the door swing open, a few middle-aged ladies exiting with their newly purchased wares, and he caught a glimpse of the man, peddling his goods the same way he’d did the week before.

 

Even with his back turned to him, Daniel could picture his face, projected into his mind like an invader. And he knew instinctively, just like he’d known about all the odd things before, that there was something different about the man today, jauntier, buoyant and refreshed – he walked with a spring in his step, whistling a bonny tune; there was a plump roundness to his being, a rosy glow on once waxen skin, a certain distinct quality in his eyes that wasn’t there the last time he saw him. And he was laughing, beady eyes staring straight into his soul, knowing and mocking at once.

 

The feeling in his heart was fear, cold and striking. Daniel turned clutching his keys to his chest as some kind of anchor, breathing heavily. And with harried footsteps, he all but ran home. 

 

***

 

The door creaked open as he unlocked it. There was no need to turn on the light even though the sun had already set, for the telly flickered in the background, the colors of the screen lighting up a pallid face in artificial blues and greens. The faint hum of static greeted his ears, like a song from a far away dream. The whole room gasped of a dirty sweetness, the sickening scent of peppermint cloying against his tongue. He watched the face of his brother peer at him, sprawled against the couch, feet drawn up to his chest.

 

Only...this was not his brother at all. He knew it was something else altogether, staring at him blankly as it smiled, strange and beckoning, teeth glinting in the light. The voices in his head hissed at him, as if indignant at having being forgotten for so long, like little snakes they warned  _ “Spirit!”, “Incubus!”, “Demon!” _ .

 

The hand of terror was pressed tight against his chest, alarm bells reverberating underneath his skin. Like a deafening drum, his heart beat wildly against his chest as the world seemed to vibrate itself into extinction. He could feel the way the walls closed in on him, suddenly dizzying and bright, his knees buckling beneath him, and it was all he could do to focus on the floor boards even as they begin to swim in and out of focus. He breathed hard,  _ in  _ then  _ out _ ,  _ in _ then  _ out  _ again. Only a second or two passed, but time had altered itself for Daniel, catching with his breaths, ebbing into its shell like a snail only to gush out like the relentless flow of a river as the world and its realities began to come back to him.

 

“Hyung,” a voice rasped out, “Daniel hyung.”

 

“Daehwi-ah,” he hesitated, staring at the strange countenance that remained plastered onto Daehwi’s face, a certain agedness to the strange face that was his brother’s, and yet was not. 

 

“Hyung,” he paused for a sniffle, reaching tentatively for  a wad of tissue to blow his nose.

 

But the dark eyes staring back at him were Daehwi’s, bright and clear, though brimming with unshed tears. A part of him sighed in relief; but he tensed again at the shrunken, folded figure against the couch. Moving slowly, he raised a cool hand to his forehead.

 

“You’re burning up.” 

 

“Probably just a bug,” Daehwi sniffled into the hem of his jacket, shrugging at his concerned, worried face. 

 

Daehwi’s skin was clammy to the touch, fingers cold as they grasped feebly at the the nook of his arm. His eyes were hooded, drowsy and unfocused, head lolling into his chest. The veins on his arms stood starkly against the light, bevelled against thin, waxen arms that were not that unlike that of a plastic figurine.

 

In the moonlight, the wretched face stared back at him, imprinted angry, red and inflamed against the dorsum of his hand like it had never left. 

 

It mocked him, the stamped image of the creature and its glinting, crocodilian eye; he wanted to yell, shriek out the words in his chest.

 

Standing at the precipice of the unknown, his mind searched frantically for what lay ahead. He wondered what it could want out of him, out of his baby brother. So he hugged Daehwi a little tighter into his chest. He knew it had begun; but Daniel would not surrender, could not surrender.

 

He wondered of the inevitability of his warnings, and the price to pay he had to pay to stop its eventuality. And in that instant, he knew just what to do. In fact, he knew just the person to look for. 

  
***

  
He was an enigma, shrouded in a kind of mystery that churned like unease in the depths of his belly.    
  
The school's head prefect a year above him in high school, he was for all purposes, the model student: smart enough, but humble and seemingly content at simply being more than above average. He was unfailingly polite, speaking with a small stutter that seemed to endear him. He was tall, handsome. He drove an old Vespa to school, in a leather jacket and tousled hair.   
  
Most of the females in their school had made no attempts to conceal their affections for him at some point in their school years; he had never acted on it, and had instead shied away from attention, choosing to pore over some book or another in the library. He was shy and a little odd, but otherwise painfully  _ normal.  _

 

And yet, his normalcy had always felt unnaturally stilted to Daniel. It felt, at times, almost as if he were checking off another thing to do on his list. And sometimes, he watched him, a lopsided smile playing on his lips that he  _ knew  _ was for him and him alone.    
  
In the mornings at assembly or in the library after school, he would stare straight at Daniel, eyes meeting. Daniel would grin back at him and he would quirk his lips, as if to say _ you know my secrets _ . In those little glances, he showed him glimpses of worlds, folding and unfolding in the amber of his eyes, a kaleidoscope of stars swirling like a glass of rum on a cold evening.   
  
It was electrifying, like the eye of a storm crackling with anticipation, or walking on the edge of a cliff. Daniel always turned away first, skin tingling and goosebumps raised as he clenched and unclenched his fists in the folds of his pants. 

 

He frightened him, unnerved him, and yet he excited him at once.    
  


They had not quite been friends, but they spoke often enough, small talk and pleasantries, but it mattered little, for Daniel knew exactly who, knew exactly  _ what _ he was. 

 

A dark head of hair and swirling amber eyes greeted him as the door opened. 

 

“Stand and deliver Kang Daniel. What are you doing here?”

 

“I need your help, I think,” he said, “you’re a witch aren’t you?”   
  



	2. Chapter 2

***

 

Juana Caeli was small and secluded for a community like theirs; a sprawling brick house, tucked out of sight with a long winding path and a hanging applecrab tree over an open yard. The house itself was steeped in history, warm reds faded with time into greyed hues. It was a place rich with tradition, with walls that whispered of secrets of yore, and unspoken tales from the earthen soil beneath them.

 

With sneakers pressing into the ground, marching forwards, he watched the sun, already set in oranges and yellows and fading into black, paint the sky in picturesque hues out the window as he passed it. It was a place where time seemed immemorial, growing with the green, slipping in and out of the sand and dust. 

 

Ong Seongwoo, a strange boy with a strange name, twenty one and young, in his black hoodie and faded jeans, stark against the backdrop of his ancient home, but just as odd. His arm was leaned against the doorframe, face twisted into a half smile, a single brow lifted as his eyes raked over Daniel’s form. 

 

"Do you want to come in?" He asked, widening the door – just a crack, so Daniel could glimpse into the swallowing darkness of the hallway – a brow lifted as if he were taunting him to dally with danger. And he  _ was  _ dangerous, Daniel knew, staring into the imperceptible depths of Seongwoo’s eyes, glowing gold in the dimness of the dying vestiges of day. He knew in his soul all he was capable of, and it rattled in his bones. And yet, he paused, waiting, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His feet yearned to dart back into a sprint, far away from the house and Ong Seongwoo – but Ong Seongwoo was his only chance,  _ for Daehwi _ , he thought,  _ Daehwi Daehwi Daehwi _ . So he nodded, leaning into the warmth of Seongwoo’s palm pressed tight against his back and let the door click shut behind him.

 

They walked in silence through the house; the walls were bedecked with various knick knacks that made little decorative sense: a row of scented candles, oakwood and marble, a red, woven carpet patterned with gold stars and wheat fields that seemed to move with the twinkling of the wind chimes. Another person might have found it ugly, but Daniel only marvelled, soaking in the rich tapestry of time and life woven into the very essence of this home.

 

Seongwoo’s room too, was cluttered with an array of items – there were rows of pictures that lined the walls, candid shutter shots taken with traditional film. There were photographs of the sea, tumultuous and grey, and a handful of images of nude women, artfully taken, their bare breasts exposed, arms and legs in oddly contorted angles that brought a blush to Daniel’s cheeks. There was an old camera on the mantle, all 35 millimeter film unrolled (spoiled and wasted) and spilling onto his desk. Right beside it, Psyche sat at the foot of Cupid's bow, and then, a small painting of a brown bear sitting on his back, scratching at his toes.

 

The room was odd, all mismatched old and new coming together like a patchwork of missing things that did not quite belong anywhere. It made Daniel wonder about the mysterious creature who lived amidst this flotsam, this boy witch, this man-child, who was a miasma of oddities and lost things. And he was alone in a strange house with this strange boy he hadn't quite seen in years, whose eyes promised secrets and things unknown. 

 

"So...what's brought you to my  _ parlour  _ Kang Daniel, isn't it a bit late to be out  _ visiting  _ a man in his room?" His eyes were twinkling, his voice bemused, and Daniel tried hard not to blush at the insinuation. 

 

They were two men in a room the same size as the one he shared with his roommate Jaehwan in college, but something about Seongwoo felt delicious and forbidden – too close, he thought, counting Seongwoo’s eyelashes and the moles on his cheek, feeling the warmth of his breath on his lips, as he stared, with that same penetrating gaze that made Daniel feel, at once, wholly naked, like a flower bud open at first touch. 

 

“What do you want from me,” Seongwoo whispered, lips ghosting at his temple, down his neck. 

 

“I…” there was a lump in his throat, anxiously forming, swallowed around imaginary cotton that rendered him speechless.  _ Daehwi _ , his mind repeated like a mantra,  _ Daehwi, Daehwi Daehwi _ . But it was hard to think; the proximity was cloying and his thoughts were a clouded mess of disparate things when Seongwoo’s lips were like fire against his own, and every touch of his fingers, grazing his jaw, his chin, felt like electricity dancing on his skin.

 

"What do you want,” He was practically purring now. His eyes bore into his, onyx pools glinting in the light, polite mask fading into something darker, something feral and wild and hungry at once. His arms were heavy against his own, tongue coaxing words and pleas, mouth hot against dusky pink nipples. 

 

The sheets were soft beneath him, and he relaxed into  fuzzy blissfulness as  he bit and nibbled and teased, leaving red, raised marks. He could feel  Seongwoo’s hands trail along bare expanses of skin, reaching below the band of his trousers to palm at his length, half-hard and straining beneath the fabric of his pants. Something niggled at the back of his mind, that this was wrong and that he’d forgotten something. But the sensation of pleasure was overwhelming, coiling in his belly, expectant and waiting. It felt  _ good _ , every muscle tensing beneath his touch. He shuddered, gasping into the sheets.  And Daniel was lost, bewitched body and soul –

 

But the voices in his head were begging to be heard:  _ Daehwi _ , they reminded, and as if lifted from a fog, he turned his face away, suddenly aware of his own  state of undress and the painful hardness between his legs.  _ His brother _ , Christ, how had he forgotten? 

 

And Seongwoo, as if sensing the subtle shifts, frowned at him as Daniel backed away from his touch. 

 

“Why are you here.” His voice was flat now, face cautiously blank as if every expression had been cleaned from it with a cloth. Daniel thought he might have been angry, and f rom the corner of his eyes, he could see the way Seongwoo stood, hoodie crumpled and face flushed, hands clenching and unclenching as he stared decidedly at the floor. But no, that wasn’t it, was it? No, something about him had sagged, like a doll on cut strings, a frown on his face as he stared at Daniel coldly. 

 

“I’ll tell you what, Kang Daniel, why don’t we put on the opening scene of Macbeth for you, my mother and my aunt, ‘When shall we three meet again, In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’,” he laughed here, a brittle sound from his throat, “You know, I’d always thought you were different Kang Daniel, I thought  _ you _ of all people might understand...but you’re just like the rest of them aren’t you? So tell me what do you need from me. A curse for your greatest enemy? A wart for your neighbour’s goat? Release the winds? No, it’s about your brother isn’t it, and you need help from some  _ witch doctor _ who can cure measles free.”

 

“He’s sick, sicker than anyone knows–”

 

“Go get a doctor, they’re government subsidised.”

 

“A doctor won’t help.” 

 

Seongwoo scoffed here, “to hell with that. You know, you really should be more careful. I could drive a hard bargain, ask to drink a pint of your blood or goodness knows what. Get a doctor, Kang, go find someone else – I’ll see you to the gate.”

 

“Look, I need  _ your _ help –” Daniel could feel his indignation rising then, trying to make Seongwoo understand; he wanted to  _ shake _ him in desperation. Because Daehwi was dying and only Daniel knew it; he didn’t know if was too late, and he felt like he was going crazy, helplessly waiting without a clue to make things better. He wanted to yell from the rooftops, because even though he knew Ong Seongwoo had no reason to help him, he was the only thing he knew – and maybe Ong Seongwoo would tell him this was all a nightmare, that the past few days were some sort of fever induced delirium, that his mind was playing tricks on him and the dreams of Hwang Minhyun laughing, the image of Daehwi strung up with tubes  _ dying _ , that had kept him awake in cold shuddering sweat, were nothing but the sleepy hallucinations of an addled mind, even if he  _ knew _ deep in his soul, that whatever was happening was real. 

 

Daniel had never been one to raise his voice in an argument, but in that instant, he did feel like shouting, or stomping his feet like a child; but the door door swung open, and suddenly, Daniel felt no more angry than a clam at high water. 

 

Kwon BoA stood, her face preternaturally graceful and serene as she swept into the room. She was small and lithe, pretty despite her obvious age; there were few lines on her fair face, and her dark hair was pulled into a tight braid behind her. 

 

“You have forgotten your manners, Seongwoo-ah, he is a guest.” She eyed their relative state of undress with disinterest, as if she hadn’t just found her son with a stranger in his room, hand in his pants, and tongue down his throat; but her eyes were sharp even if her words were soothing, “Coffee or tea?” 

 

Daniel blinked. He opened his mouth to answer, but Seongwoo beat him to it, grabbing his hands to tug him away from his mother’s grasp.

 

“Not here he doesn’t, he’s just going.” 

 

He moved to stand, holding the door open as Daniel moved passively. But BoA stopped them both, hands cold against his arm. She turned to her son to speak.

 

“Go and get your motorbike Seongwoo. Daniel  _ shouldn’t _ be walking home alone on these streets.” He could feel the way Seongwoo flinched at his mother’s words, the tension that lingered between his brows as mother and son exchanging indecipherable looks across the room.

 

“I came by them,” Daniel retorted, feeling irritated at once at the old woman who seemed to at once judge and assess him, eyes glinting with a kind of purpose that unsettled him at once. 

 

“The roads are _ different _ at night,” Seongwoo murmured, and he turned away from his mother, countenance softened, body shrinking into a hunch. It was as if the fever of anger had passed, and Seongwoo stood before him as the world knew him, subdued and polite, eyes soft and face flushed pink in shame, “I...I’m sorry. For earlier. I’ll go get my keys and a change of clothes. I’ll be round the porch.” 

 

He trudged away with slow steps, a reluctant head peering into the kitchen twice more before he disappeared from view.

 

*** 

 

There were four mismatched chairs in the kitchen set out neatly in a circle around the small table. A cosy pot of tea was set upon it, hot and piping as if it had been expecting guests. Three mugs were overturned, part of a set of half a dozen, and Daniel sat himself down on the plush stool in the center of the room. There was a small fire and hearth not far away, but Daniel felt a chill run through him anyway, and he reached for a steaming mug and placed it to his lips.

 

BoA was seated across him, a second woman entering the kitchen to set down a slice of leavened bread and salt; She was Seongwoo’s aunt, Kahi, equally beautiful as she was severe, long hair pulled into a braid behind her. They sat there for a few moments both women watching him, the pressure of an unspoken expectation behind their gazes and pursed lips, with a sort of an anxiety which their calm faces did not reveal.

 

He didn’t know what was going on, and he wondered briefly if he might not enlist these new witches – for that was what they were – on Daehwi’s behalf. They were different from Seongwoo; when Daniel first saw him, it had almost been flamboyant in its declaration, but there was something softer to them, his mother and his aunt, something more secret, hidden in smiles, or the quirk of an eyebrow and the tilt of a head. 

 

And BoA smiled at him assessing, thin-lipped and thinking. 

 

“What did you want Seongwoo to do for you,” she asked, unassuming.

 

“My brother is very sick,” he began, but he could sense their interest was not in his brother at all, but Seongwoo and, for some reason, Daniel himself. BoA interrupted him before he could continue, anxious to say something before her son returned, "we’re sorry about Seongwoo. He can be very inept at times.”

 

Daniel didn’t think Seongwoo was inept, just a little different. But he didn’t know what to say, so he merely brought the bread to his lips and nibbled on the edge. For some reason, it seemed to set the women at ease, and Kahi reached over hold his hand. 

 

“Please be patient with him,” her voice was firm, and yet halting, “Seongwoo can be...difficult. Part of it is our fault. I’m sure you’ve heard.” 

 

Daniel knew here she was referring to Seongwoo’s childhood. He didn’t quite know the details, but the community was small, and gossip travelled fast. 

 

“He’s a witch isn’t he?...was that why?” He didn’t think it was his place to ask, but the women did not seem to mind his question.

 

BoA’s nodded hesitantly, “It was…” she paused here, and then shook her head, “It is late, perhaps someday else….He doesn’t like to be called that, a witch, although that’s what he is. There’s a part of him that feels both like a man and a witch, one or the other and never quite both. We’ve tried to reconcile him, took him to doctors to undo the damage of years past. He imitates normal life very well now, when he has to, but Seongwoo...he’s a bit of a broken car. My sister and I don’t quite understand him, for he is so different from us; we can't tell much of what he really thinks or feels — he doesn’t talk much of the things that bother him. But then he’d started talking about you.”

 

There was a sly smile on her lips now as she stared pointedly at Daniel. He could feel the flush creep up his skin, the tips of his ears hot as he tried not to think about the still unbuttoned collar of his shirt or the way Seongwoo’s hands had burned like a brand on his skin. 

 

“He thought I came to see him because I liked him,” there was a sense of dawning understanding now, “but I wouldn’t…it’s late and even if I did, I wouldn’t…” 

 

The women smiled back at him, fingers entrapping his own, “but perhaps someday?” there was something knowing in their countenances. And Daniel found his belly aching, something raw and alive and waiting; he could not deny it, the fact that he wanted Seongwoo in a most primal, visceral way, and he opened and closed his mouth without an answer. 

 

It was at this moment that Seongwoo appeared by the doorway, tossing a helmet to Daniel with a flourish of his hand. 

 

“We should be going.” 

 

Daniel nodded, rising to his feet. He bade the women goodbye, the mysterious aunt and mother who only smiled their same secret smiles. 

 

And they left.

**Author's Note:**

> this is gonna be long ;A; no promises as to how often this will be updated! i'm halfway through the second chapter but my school workload is heavy as usual so i'll try to just pull time out as and whenever i can to write :( lmk if there are any grammar errors or awkward sentences this is completely un-proofread.
> 
> based off one of my favorite YA books, The Changeover by Margaret Mahy. i tried to stick to the book as closely as i could while writing this with some changes. this one is set in the 90s just cos, it's not going to be a big part of the story but it just made more sense to date it in that era for practical and stylistic reasons. here's to simpler times :)


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